


Things said when you were drunk

by LostinFic



Series: Hardy x Hannah ficlets [10]
Category: Broadchurch, Secret Diary of a Call Girl (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drunken Confessions, Drunkenness, F/M, Ficlet, Teninch Fic, standalone in a serie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 15:04:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5790013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostinFic/pseuds/LostinFic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hardy shows up on Hannah's doorstep in a strange mood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things said when you were drunk

Hannah didn’t know they were that kind of friends. The kind of friends who show up on each other’s doorstep without a warning. Hardy muttered a "hello" and pushed past her. He went directly into the kitchen and opened the cupboards one after the other.

“Looking for something?”

“Alcohol.”

“You came all the way to London for alcohol? You know there’s a little thing called ‘a pub’.”

He ignored her and kept looking. He found a bottle of whisky and poured two glasses, handing one to her. He gulped his down and refilled it. Hannah leaned back against the counter top, eyeing him with a frown.

It’s a funny thing that after dating Tess’ brother for a year, it’s Hardy she’d stayed in touch with for twice as long. Although she’d never said so to anyone, he was part of the reason why they’d broken up; she looked forward to family dinners more than to any other activity with her boyfriend. On those occasions, she and Hardy often found themselves talking, just the two of them. More than once, she’d caught Tess giving him the stink eye, but his behavior remained irreproachable– her own less so. Did his wife know they still saw each other? Hannah had never asked.

“Okay, will you tell me what the hell’s going on with you?”

“No. I’m fine. How’ve you been?”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Really? You barge in here and won’t tell me a thing?”

As much as she liked seeing him now, she had an appointment in a half-hour. She didn’t have the patience to babysit an emotionally-thwarted man on a mission to get shitfaced.

Hardy stopped halfway through his third glass. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Right. I shouldn’t’ve come here. Sorry, Hannah.”

He exited the flat as fast as he had come in.

 _Bloody hell._ “Alec, wait…”

She went after him, but stopped when she heard him talk on the phone in the hall. She cracked the door opened and listened.

“I’m at Hannah’s… Look, she’s the only person I felt like seeing… Really, Tess? Jealousy? Now? You’ve got some nerves… Oh, don’t blame this on me or her. I didn’t cheat, you did!”

He cut the call short, and Hannah heard him lean against the wall with a heavy sigh. After a beat, she went out in the hall and pretended to be surprised to find him there.

"I thought I'd heard someone talking."

She waited until he met her eyes, and indicated he should come in with a simple head tilt.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Fine. I’ve got the new _Call of Duty_ and enough whisky to drink ourselves stupid.”

While Hardy settled in the living room, she canceled with her client and slipped on some more comfortable clothes. They played for nearly an hour, Hardy hell-bent on shooting everything in his sight. The alcohol dulled their reflexes, and when they tired of losing, they switched to Mario Kart.

Hannah played with her whole body, leaning left and right to dodge blue shells and follow the road. More than once, she bumped Hardy with her shoulder or leg, and he bumped her right back. She started doing it on purpose, and it turned into a competition to shove the other off the sofa instead of winning the kart race. Not exactly something difficult to achieve given how unbalanced the alcohol made them. No, the difficult part was to declare a winner as both had stumbled to the floor at the same time. Hardy maintained she’d pulled him down, but Hannah argued that clearly she’d fallen _over_ him, so after him.

“Whatever,” she declared sluggishly after a while.

They remained on the floor in silence, staring at the ceiling, willing the room to stop spinning.

Hannah closed her eyes and took deep breath. Hardy's fingers brushed against hers, perhaps intentionally, and she opened her eyes to find him staring at her. Only blue light from the telly illuminated his face. There was that slightly glazed-over drunk look in his eyes, but beyond that there was a hurting sort of tenderness, so opened and vulnerable, her breath caught in her throat.

In all honesty, she’d wanted to shag him for a long time— no, not exactly shag him, but to be close to him. A hankering for entwined bodies and complicit smiles that confused her. But she couldn’t, not in this situation when he was angry at his wife. She didn’t want to be a plaster— something you rip off once healed. Yet, she couldn’t look away from him— the urge to fall. She told herself she wouldn’t step over the edge this time. She’d wait, do this properly and get what she really wanted when he would be in a clearer state of mind.

“Sometimes… sometimes I wish I’d met you before,” he whispered.

“Before what?”

“Everything,” he said with a wild hand gesture.

“Right.”

“Before I met Tess, before you became an escort, before we had these— these hard shells.” He knocked on his chest as though he expected a hollow sound.

It pained her to see him like this. She covered his fist with her hand, coaxing it open with brushes of her fingers. His fist unclenched slowly, and he turned his palm up against hers to thread their fingers.

“You would’ve liked me more before,” he said in a barely audible voice that tugged at her heart.

“I wish you hadn’t said that,” and she kissed him.


End file.
